2016-07-16-0049Z

news from Turkey is contradictory. I heard as early as last night the coup was
successful. googled just a few minutes ago and read that it wasn't.

here's my take, at the risk of sounding like Brian Williams, becase I was
there, in Istanbul, in late 1996 or early 1997, whenever it was that the
military deposed Erbakan. at the time I was working for List 2000, a Turkish
search engine, as one of the two lead programmers. it was to be the "grand
opening" of the company, as I recall the first multilingual Turkish search
engine, and there were lots of dignitaries, celebrities, and assorted
businesspeople gathered to witness the deployment. I was working (illegally,
I guess, but my bosses had paid all necessary bribes) with the Turkish
employees in their building in Istanbul; myself and the other two Americans who came with me were hired at their office in Boca Raton, FL.

when the other programmer, Carl, had to go home early due to a family emergency,
it fell on me to finish the automated translation process and get the site
ready. I worked for something like 40 hours straight, but had it done on time
for the celebration.

I can't remember if the coup happened before or after the grand opening.
nobody seemed too concerned about it, in fact everyone seemed upbeat. my boss,
Sam (Semih) explained that Turks were primarily secular, though many called
themselves Muslim the same as many Americans say they're Christian though they
don't read the bible or go to church; and when a president starts getting
cozy with Muslim clerics they want the military to step in and
force new elections.

later that night, or not long after in any case, they called in pizza from the
local Pizza Hut and I got violently ill from it. Sam's mom made me some
chicken soup and I was on the mend after a day or three.

I don't remember a whole lot more: vignettes of going to a local burger joint
on my own; walking in the cold twilight between the office building and the
hotel; drinking Turkish coffee down to the mud at the bottom of the cup.
fun times.